You might call me an old-fashioned or technologically down-to-date man – in fact, one of my best friends, who works as a doctor in a government hospital in North Jakarta, carries on keeping on continuing – I know I am being lebay (i.e. an Indonesian slang term for "exaggerating"), but there it is – insisting that I utilize the popular social media app. So, why don’t I do that? What prevents me clicking on the Play Store icon on my phone and, after several necessary steps, press the download button for the camera-logoed software?
I am from Indonesia, a wide-spanning, island-chunked country near to the kangaroo land Australia, and with a population of an enormous over 250 million people (hopefully I am right) and alay attitude present across the inhabitants (most of them are young adults), it is squarely a delish market for Instagram. And I think it is safe to say that its penetration and performance here is “highly successful”. A lot of my friends seem to love it and I can see their photos (and sometimes, or oftentimes, the accompanying deluges of hashtags) on my Facebook timeline since their Instagram accounts are linked to their Facebook. Again, the question remains the same: why don’t I have Instagram? (oh, well, different wording, but the same idea, right?)
The answer lies in my nature. I consider myself as someone who is ‘geared’ more towards functionality. I am not a kind of person who puts high importance on esthetics. It is reflected by the way I dress: I wouldn’t want to spend, say, 150 USD on fancy pieces of clothing – it would be better to use that much money to buy dinosaur books written by experts in the field since it will make me a more knowledgeable human and get me to a clearer understanding of the world. However, I do love taking and sharing pictures – with right doses. I do it occasionally, just when I feel it is necessary.
I am also a type of hominid who doesn’t like to follow mainstream trends – again, if they are not functional. I don’t feel Instagram would satisfy my needs as they have been fulfilled by, for example, Facebook. The sister company, I think, is the best social medium as it has all the features you would expect in such an app: you can upload photos and videos, you can post a status consisting of text only, you can create groups as well as pages, and so on and so forth. I do use other social media, for instance, LinkedIn and Twitter. I use the former because it provides a great platform in professional context (for networking, applying for jobs, etc.), while I created an account on the latter as it was ordered by my university lecturer in a character-building subject for a future assignment which she ended up not giving – thankfully, there is an upside of it: I can interact with science public figures such as British zoologist Dr. Darren Naish and Australian science writer John Pickrell. To me, the thought of having the latest version of the iPhone is just uninteresting and to be ignored: I am completely satisfied with my over-a-year-old Sony Xperia M2.
Now you might be asking: Will you ever use Instagram? Will I do that in the future? Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends: I will if I find that it will have a useful impact in my life.
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